POINTS OF INTEREST.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19896, 27 May 1936, Page 8

POINTS OF INTEREST.

The Prime Minister had a pleasant duty to discharge yesterday, and if topics of a political nature sometimes intruded, during the course of his speech, his hearers fully understood the position and did not allow their own views to affect in any way the welcome given to the head of the Administration. Mr Savage claimed confidentally that the Government had built well, even if rising prices for some of the raw materials and foodstuifs that the Dominion produces have accounted, in no small measure, for the better outlook that he described so eloquently. The occasion, of course, was not one for the discussion of controversial topics, but Mr Savage, with long experience of public life, probably knows that the criticism now being levelled at his Ministry cannot be airily waved away. The energetic campaign which Mr W. J. Polson, MP. is conducting is serving to bring these issues plainly before the people most directly concerned.

There are two problems that will constitute the test of the Government’s legislation and administration. One is'the efiect on the primary industries, and the other is the'problem of unemploy—ment. The first test can be stated in a sentence. The gulf between costs and returns must be bridged. That constitutes the most serious er‘onomio problem confronting the Dominion {to-day. It would be an easy matter to name others, but none so directly affecting the financial stability of the country. The Government is committed to a policy of paying a. guaranteed price to dairy farmers, and even if that price were disclosed to-morrow it would not be sufiicient to enable the producers to ascertain how they stand. They will be affected by the labour legislation that has been so prominent in part of the programme this session, and it will take some time for the eflect on prices to be made clear. But, until that has been done, and price movements have established the new basis that is inevitable, the profiucers cannot judge the net value of anything done to assist them. '

The second pressing problem is the absorption of the unemployed, and yesterday Mr Savage said that he would not be satisfied until everyone had been fitted into the industrial structure. The figures quoted by Mr Savage were later than those available in the ofl‘ieial publications, and the next, monthly statement of the Government Statistician will be awaited with interest. In the six months, to March 14, the number of registered unemployed males fell by nearly 4000, a pleasing movement, but the Minister of Public Works has stated that his Department had built up its labour strength by about that total, so that, unless the additional employees there have been recruited solely from the ranks of the unemployed, there must have been some transfer of labour from other avenues of employment, and that would not be in the best interests of the Dominion. These are two of the many points of interest raised by the Prime Minister, and they will probably be more and more prominent in the (lays ahead.